Franck DuongView profile
Professor
Franck Duong is a Professor in the Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology at the Faculty of Medicine, University of British Columbia. His laboratory is located in the Life Sciences Centre at UBC, and he maintains an active research program focused on membrane protein biochemistry and technology development. Dr. Duong received his BSc and PhD from the University of Marseilles, France (1990 and 1994 respectively), followed by postdoctoral training at Dartmouth Medical School (1998) and as a Principal Investigator at CNRS-University of Paris-Sud (2004). His research centers on the structural and functional characterization of membrane proteins, with a strong focus on developing tools for their solubilization and analysis under native-like conditions. His lab pioneered the Peptidisc—a self-assembling, amphipathic peptide scaffold that stabilizes integral membrane proteins in aqueous solution without detergents. This technology preserves protein-lipid interactions and simplifies reconstitution directly from biological membranes, enabling applications in structural biology, proteomics, and interaction mapping. Analysis of Dr. Duong's recent publications (2020-2025) reveals a consistent focus on advancing membrane protein research through innovative methodologies. His work has evolved from fundamental Peptidisc development to sophisticated applications in nanobody engineering, membrane proteome profiling across various tissues, and integration with mass spectrometry for large-scale analysis. The research demonstrates increasing sophistication in capturing native protein-lipid interactions and applying these insights to disease contexts like liver dysfunction. Dr. Duong's laboratory actively collaborates with researchers across structural biology, pharmacology, and systems biology fields. His work on membrane protein stabilization has significant implications for drug discovery, as membrane proteins constitute over half of current drug targets yet remain challenging to study using conventional methods. The Duong Research Group maintains an active website (https://theduongresearchgroup.com/) detailing their current projects, team members, and technological innovations in membrane protein biochemistry.










